What has God done in this, and what have we? ~ Will Clancy

The Sonoran Desert is composed (at least to my eyes) of predominantly three things: rocks, sand, and cactuses. It was not a landscape which I initially expected to find beautiful. But it grew on me. Dotted with mountains, some of which are idyllically snow-capped and picturesque, I found that by the time we arrived in Douglas from Phoenix, it was absolutely gorgeous. Like most of God’s creation, it is a place that is undeniably good, well-made, beloved, and reverently cared for by our Creator. I was taken by the sight of the sunset behind the mountains in the distance, glistening off the peaks, and by the tall pine trees that swayed in the cold wind. As far as we could see, this breathtaking landscape stretched out into the distance. And, in the middle of it all, there is a wall.

The wall is at least eighteen feet high—thirty in some places. Triangular pillars of unbent steel stretching up, rusted, stamped with the words, “Made in the USA”, and topped with the bright razor blades of concertina wire. In inhabited areas like Douglas/Agua Prieta, the wall interrupts the regular rhythm of a city—forcing streets and buildings to avoid it, turning the nearby land and people from their normal behavior, forcing them to wait in long lines at border crossings, and breaking an otherwise unified community into two. In uninhabited areas, it carves a long steel line through the otherwise lovely landscape that can be seen from miles away. And in the mountains, it literally blasts a clear path deep into the peaks with explosives in order to leave its trail across the land.

Regardless of whether you stand on the U.S. or Mexican side of the border, the landscape persists. And so too do the gifts that come with it. On both sides of the wall, we met some of the most delightfully friendly people, who welcomed us into their homes and spoke with us. We saw art, made by the people who live on that land. We ate delicious food, grown and cooked on that land. We saw more stars than ever before, we walked across arroyos (washes) we had never crossed, and in the middle of it all, there is a wall.

I was struck (for the first time, I’m ashamed to admit) during our trip by how unnatural and ungodly the wall was. The U.S.-Mexico border is an aberration: it is not normal, not natural. Amid the living, breathing goodness of God’s creation, there is a border wall-shaped rupture. And the problems of this rupture are not just theoretical. Like any unnatural object trapped inside a living thing, the border wall has become a sort of infection that has seeped into the land, into our politics, into our communities. And it is making us sick.

Once upon a time, it would have been possible to cross the border there easily, moving from one community to another. But, infected by the border wall, these communities have become divided. Immigrants must risk their lives if they wish to cross, and the result is that many die in the process—preventable deaths deliberately caused by a wall engineered to injure, maim, and kill those who cross it. Nearby animals must also contend with the wall, which has disrupted migration patterns and destroyed ecosystems. Even the land itself is sick. The pollution and waste produced by building and maintaining the wall, running the lights along it all night, powering the Border Patrol trucks that guard it is quite literally poisoning the Earth. This sickness has even seeped into our politics—the border wall and the debates over immigration it has caused have infected our national consciousness, and I do not think it an overstatement to draw a direct line between that wall and the deaths of Renée Nicole Good, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, and all those others who have died as a result of this administration’s immigration policies.

This wall did not need to be. God did not put that wall there. The landscape, the people, the animals—those, God did make. And they are so, so good. But that goodness has become subsumed into the infection of the wall, which has slowly but surely corrupted everything that it touches. And while God did not put that wall there, we did. Our government, supported by our tax dollars, has built an 18-foot, razor-tipped, infectious wall of death across the land that God made for all of us to live in. I think we need to ask ourselves what that says about our wall, our immigration policy, and our country.

Will Clancy is a senior studying political science.

Photo: The border wall, seen from the top of a large hill just outside of Douglas, stretching far off into the distance.